Kinnear arrival is no laughing matter

FanZoner Alan Jewels says Newcastle's appointment of Joe Kinnear as director of football is a joke, and feels fans are in for a bumpy ride.

Like many Newcastle fans, I can't quite believe the events of the past few days.

On Sunday afternoon it was rumoured by local journalists that Joe Kinnear was to return to our club as a director of football. A sick joke, surely? By the end of the day Kinnear had already taken part in a bizarre telephone interview with Sky Sports News. It was actually happening.

During the interview Kinnear claimed that he had been in talks for three weeks with Mike Ashley over the impending appointment. I wonder how many other people were considered for the role?

Kinnear also claimed he would be taking full responsibility for transfers and playing style. Alan Pardew must be delighted. In fact we know he is, because Joe Kinnear said so: ''Before I had a meeting with Mike, [managing director] Derek [Llambias] said he's informed Alan, and Alan said, "Great news - I'm delighted. At last I've got somebody who's a football guy".

''My record speaks for itself'' Kinnear continued. Yes, Joe, it does. You were in charge of Newcastle for 26 matches. You only managed to win five of them.

''I've been Manager of the Year three times,'' he said. Try once, in 1994.

There were still some, myself included, praying that Kinnear had lost the plot, making wild claims in the media and that Ashley or Llambias would deny the whole thing. On the contrary the story wasn't denied, but strangely nor was it confirmed.

As Monday drew to a close, and thousands upon thousands of the Toon's faithful Army took to Twitter to discuss their utter disbelief at what was happening to our club, it was announced that Kinnear would partake in another telephone interview - this time with TalkSport.

Is this real life? Another telephone interview, before any statement from the club? Well, this is Newcastle United.

I couldn't help but burst into hysterics at Kinnear's second attempt at public speaking in the space of 48 hours. If I didn't, I'd have most certainly been crying.

Aside from the mispronunciations of players names such as Yohan Kebab, Hatem Ben Afree and Shola Amamamobibi, the man actually called his own boss, Derek Llambias, ''Derek Lambayzee''.

Having previously claimed he was in talks over the job for three weeks, Kinnear now claimed he first spoke to Ashley about the position 10 days ago. You do the maths.

Kinnear stated in the interview that he brought goalkeeper Tim Krul to the club, despite Krul having made his debut for the club two years before Kinnear was appointed. He also claimed to have signed James Perch, when it was in fact Chris Hughton who brought Perch to the Toon a year after Kinnear left the club for health reasons.

He goes on to claim he has never been sacked as a football manager. Again, this contradicts real life. He was sacked by Nottingham Forest and Luton Town.

We could go on, the interview was rammed full of lies.

The best part of the interview for me was right at the end, when asked whether he had a message for those of us who doubted the appointment, Kinnear replied: "If they wanna argue with me, they're talking out of their backsides. What do you want? Should I bring Lambayzee back? I've certainly got a lot more intelligence than them.''

Make no bones about it; this appointment is a joke. We are in for a bumpy ride, and I'm not so sure I can take much more.

I leave you with this, a quote from our very own Joe Kinnear when asked if he would ever consider taking on a role such as director of football, only one year ago: "I would consider something like a director of football post. But I would do that for just one reason and that is to get myself back into full-time management. If I was a director of football and the manager was struggling and got the old tin-tack, I would tell them that I'd take over."